H.E Nasser Al-Tamimi, Secretary-General of the Judo and Wrestling Federation, stressed that the participation of the duo, Victor and Ivan Romanco, our national judo team players in the Tokyo Olympics, their qualification and preparation were done in the best possible way, noting that the Judo Federation family hoped to repeat the success of Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to delight the leadership and people of the Emirates with a colorful medal, that will be worked on as of next September, according to the Federation’s plan for the next eight years during the Paris and Los Angeles tournaments.
Al-Tamimi said, “We apologize to the leadership and people of the UAE for not being able to achieve an Olympic medal in Tokyo.”. Adding, “The Judo and Wrestling Federation always considers failure the biggest motivator to work, address negative matters and modify them, enhance the positives and gains in every forum, explaining that Victor Skritov’s participation in the under 73 kg competition in Tokyo Olympics was distinguished, as he lost difficultly seconds before the end of the match after scoring first at the beginning. The athlete who ranked Second Globally in the World Tournament held in Budapest, won the match, and Ivan could not be qualified from the preliminary round after losing against his Canadian counterpart, as he suffered a shoulder injury last year and stopped training for a period of time for recovery, but at the same time he expressed his pride on the levels provided and the colorful medals for judo players, whether in the Asian Games or the world championships.
Al-Tamimi added that from now on, we promise the UAE audience to achieve a colorful medal in the next Olympic Games Tournament in Paris in 2024, and continued, "The Olympic Games Tournament have a special and different character than the rest of the benefits, especially judo, in which it is difficult to predict the champion and the loser, given the convergence of levels as the details are very simple that could grant medals for some players; meanwhile success is far from some other players despite their strength and readiness. The matter is unknown when there are the best 20 players in the world, and in the currently Olympic Games held in Tokyo, many former Olympic champions and world champions left The Olympic forum without achieving a colorful medal and exiting the preliminary rounds, as well as many strong and long-standing countries in judo such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia participating in all weights, which have not achieved any medals so far, as the budget for preparing judo players in Russia is 100 million dollars for four year, averaged $25 million per year.
Al-Tamimi revealed that the Wrestling and Judo Federation will commence the new preparation stage as of next September, working on booking direct qualification cards for 3 players in order to participate and compete for a colorful medal at the Paris Olympics in 2024, where the female athletes of the judo team will be added in this forum.